“The snake rattles, / the lion yawns / and man makes a book. A wild book / for civilized people. A sophisticated book / for wild people. A beautiful book / with wild animals / for civilized people. A book with beautiful animals / for wild people.”
Winner of “Best Graphic Design” in the 2011 Dutch Design Awards 2011, the offset-printed, hardcover Wild Animals presents vibrant, vivid wet-on-wet paintings of various creatures, some reputably feral (e.g. tigers) and some more questionably so (see baby chicks). Both trippy and child-friendly, these full-color, double-spread portraits sport varying degrees of likeness to their purported beastly subjects.
“Amsterdam-based graphic designer Rop van Mierlo self-published his colourful work in a book appropriately called Wild Animals. This title, which has a separate English and Dutch edition, collects several of van Mierlo’s joyous and colourful painting of animals. The designer’s loose and free spirited wet-on-wet painting style makes for an upbeat book which holds a collection of wild and not-so wild animals for young and old to look at and admire.”